One of the important distinctions to understand in our society is between the middle class and the striver class.
Being middle class is about building a life. It's primarily about the material elements of the American Dream : a house with a backyard for grilling in a nice neighborhood, a car, family vacations, retirement savings, a social life with friends and neighbors and people from church, children who are able to build a life with even better material success.
Being striver class is about the desire to move up in the world. There are material aspects to that, but also the key element of social status . The striver wants to get into the right schools, to move to the right city or neighborhood, to vacation in the right destinations, to have intellectual or artistic ambitions, to run in the right circles, to be recognized and accepted by people at higher social levels.
The difference between middle class and striver class is not money. People with a middle class orientation can make a ton of money and be wealthier than many striver class people - even be rich, typically through some prosaic business or " sweaty startup ", or even by becoming a partner in an accounting firm or a successful doctor.
What distinguishes the striver class person is a desire to move up socially, not just economically. This doesn't have to mean trying to join some exclusive country club. It might also mean wanting to become a tenured professor at a good university, or to own an apartment in a fashionable NYC neighborhood, or to get an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal.
The difference is also not strictly about ambition level. Some people with middle class mindsets really want to get rich. Strivers can have as shallow or low ambitions as any middle class person. The difference is in the kind of ambition.
Both are completely legitimate ways to live. But these groups have very different orientations toward life. I don't think a striver class person would feel at home in a predominantly middle class environment, or vice versa.
Pete Buttigieg and Vivek Ramaswamy are archetypal strivers. It’s no surprise that both of them managed to get on TV during two separate 2003 MSNBC presidential town halls.
Read the rest of this piece at Aaron Renn Substack.
Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker and writer on a mission to help America's cities and people thrive and find real success in the 21st century. He focuses on urban, economic development and infrastructure policy in the greater American Midwest. He also regularly contributes to and is cited by national and global media outlets, and his work has appeared in many publications, including the The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Photo: screenshot from 2003 presidential town hall.
Email this Story
